Hi guys i am a little confused on the whole crimping thing. I got a lee factory crimp die with my die set. I should add im loading 45 acp rounds. I bought hornaday 185 gn hp-xtp bullets without the crimping grove and some information i read online says you cant crimp a bullet that has no crimping grove. i was just wondering if this was true? I recently made 10 and they were not ejecting right. the fired shell was jamming in the chamber and OAL was right and i did put a slight crimp on each of the shells. I didnt know if someone else had this problem and without the crimping grove should i be crimping at all?

If you are having problems with the fired casing ejecting your problem isn't crimping or OAL related. What powder charge are you using?

Also the 45acp for semi-autos uses a taper crimp and it will work just fine with bullets not sporting a cannelure. Quite honestly you don't need all that much crimp though anyway. If you were to crimp one then pull the bullet you shouldn't see anything more than a small line across the bullet.

My Hornady manual shows a COL of 1.230" for #45100 185gr HP/XTP with a start charge of 4.1gr of Bullseye and a max charge of 5.4gr for the 1.230" COL.
As for crimping, I use the taper crimp to remove the case mouth flare, the cartridge head spaces on the case mouth to much crimp will screw that up. The case mouth of the finished round should measure .469-.471" depending on the bullet diameter and case wall thickness.

A taper crimp is what is used for .45 acp. All you want to do is remove any flair you put on the case to seat the bullet. The tension of the case is enough to keep them in place. Crimping more that just removing the flair can cause problems. There is a big difference in the amount of powder needed between lead and jacketed bullets. Your powder amount is short of the minimum needed for a jacketed XTP bullet. There is no surprise your pistol will not cycle with that load.

Just looking at a couple of sources I see load data ranging from 5.7 to 6.4 grains of bullseye powder with OAL of 1.200". Using 1.230" OAL another source says max is 6.7 grains of bullseye.

You really need to have a few sources for load data before loading the first round of something new to you. Make certain you use lead data only for lead and maybe thin plated bullets. Jacketed bullets need more powder to move the bullet through the barrel. A shorter OAL will reduce the amount of powder needed. As you can see with 3 or 4 different sources so far mentioned the OAL is different for each and the amount of powder as well. I seldom find the minimum charge will cycle most of my pistols. 0.1 or 0.2 grains above the minimum normally will cycle all of them just fine. Beyond that amount, I go up to get a more accurate load only. There is one exception. Using W231 powder I will go 0.1 or 0.2 grains of powder higher than the minimum to get an accurate load only to get it to burn a little cleaner. It works for me as long as it is still an accurate load. It is a rare thing for me to go as high as the max listed load so far. A load that is very accurate in my pistol may not be as good in yours. It may be acceptable but not great. The same can be said with even two pistols of the same model.

This is some really basic stuff. Mebbe a copy of The ABCs of Reloading is in order. Yes you can crimp bullets with or without a cannalure or crimp groove. Most roll crimping is done for revolver rounds and crimped into a cannalure or crimp groove. Semi-auto cartridges that headspace on the case mouth most often use a taper crimp. The 45 ACP, which headspaces on the case mouth, uses a taper crimp (not really a crimp, just "deflaring" the case mouth for good chambering. Double check your load data; powder charge seems a bit light to me. (which would account for the failure to eject). How does you gun cycle?

3.5 grains of Bullseye under 185 grain swaged and cast lead bullets in a tuned target pistol with light recoil springs used to be a common load for conventional pistol target shooting (though I always found 3.8 grains more accurate in my 1911's). The 185 grain jacketed semi-wadcutter bullets used to be loaded by the factory with the equivalent of 4.2 grains of Bullseye, which was the load generally recommended as a substitute for use with 185 grain JSWC's. That corresponds closely enough to Hornady's minimum load recommendation, and it is a load that will normally cycle a standard 1911 without special reduced recoil springs. So it is where I would start.

So I am a little surprised to see Lyman recommend starting a 185 grain JHP with 3.5 grain, but the higher pressure that the shorter seating depth causes may explain it. It should shoot just fine, but I'd still be concerned that some guns might not cycle properly with it. Some of the short compacts, in particular, probably will not.

The old 230 grain hardball load of 5 grains of Bullseye is so commonly used that you are in no danger with the lighter bullet of using a load that high. I note Hornady has you work all the way up to 6 grains, but note they are using the longer 1.230" COL the Dave mentioned. The Lyman load is for a general JHP shape, but once you have a particular bullet identified, the bullet manufacturer usually knows what COL their particular bullet works best with and has tested well with. So, while your 3.5 grain loads are fine to fire with the Lyman COL, I would switch to 1.230" and 4.1 grains starting load, per Hornady's recommendation for their own bullet, to start the next round of tests.

By the way, if you call or email Hornady, they will send you their load recommendation details for any particular bullet they make. If you don't have their manual, that's a good work around for a particular bullet of theirs.

The previous advice to adjust a taper crimp to just iron out the belling is a good approach. Take your calipers and measure the diameter of the finished round just below the case mouth. It should be between 0.467"-0.473" according to SAAMI's drawing.

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